


Anniversary

by Annariel



Category: Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the anniversary of the day he lost his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anniversary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaila](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaila/gifts).



> Thanks to fredbassett for beta-reading.

It had been a particularly bad day, like most others but more so. The Queen of Attolia had received supplicants with barely concealed animosity and sent more than normal away trembling with fear and considering themselves lucky to be alive. Meanwhile the King had contrived to snore through the whole session and she had lacked the heart to kick him discreetly and tell him to behave.

The owlish look he shot her as they left the audience chamber told her he was perfectly aware that on any other day she would have stopped him and that he resented the fact that today she had chosen restraint.

By mid-afternoon her attendants would have been in fear of their lives as well, had not Phresine's calm presence been there to gently curb her excesses. She had no doubt the King's attendants were being driven mad with his demands and complaints, not that most of them didn't deserve it.

Attolia abandoned her diplomatic correspondence because, frankly, she was far from diplomatic today. Her eye fell on her youngest and newest attendant, a pretty dark-haired girl called Ismene.

"Send to the King and tell him I wish to speak with him," Attolia commanded.

The girl leaped up, as if stung, and dashed out of the room.

"Will he answer a summons?" asked Phresine mildly.

"He will if he knows what's good for him," Attolia snapped.

The girl was back mere minutes later, "I'm sorry, your Majesty, the King sends that he is indisposed."

Attolia pursed her lips together in frustration. "That is not good enough," she managed to say through gritted teeth.

The girl blanched white at her expression and then ran from the room.

"Perhaps I should go," suggested Phresine. 

She probably should have sent Phresine but it was too late now. Either Ismene would fetch him, or Attolia would need to think up something else.

There was a longer wait this time but eventually Ismene returned, the King and all his attendants following her so that the room was crowded. Ismene's eyes were wide with fear, and the King had something of the same look about him as if Ismene's own terror had communicated itself to him.

"You summoned me," Attolis said, managing to make the words sound insolent even though she could hear the suppressed tremor in his voice.

Attolia waved a hand and within seconds Phresine had risen and shuffled the other women from the room, somehow managing to sweep the King's attendants out with her. The door banged shut and they were left in silence. The King lounged against the door post and refused to look at her.

Attolia walked across to her mirror and picked up a small carved box. She carried it to the table by the window and cleared away her correspondence. Then she pushed the box towards the King.

"For you," she said.

He unbent ever so slightly and came over to sit next to her in the window. He didn't touch the box.

"It's not an anniversary I want to remember," he said bitterly and he brought his hook down viciously on the table making yet another sharp dent in the wood. 

It wasn't an anniversary she would have chosen to remember either. The air was thick with the charnel house smell of blood, and she could still vividly recall his screams, his pleas and his sobs. Still the anniversary bound them and defined them in ways too complex to tease apart.

"Yet, we remember," was all she said.

The King sighed and he opened the box. Irene had spent a long time setting out the commission for the earrings inside. They were made of gold filigree with finely polished drops of amber nestling in the basketwork. They would set off her hair and skin beautifully.

Gen's lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile. "I can't steal these if you give them to me."

"That is more or less the idea. We must have something about the place that you haven't stolen."

He leaned forwards to loop them gently through her ears. "Have I really stolen everything?"

She placed a hand against his face, a gesture she had once used to remind him of his fear but which she now used to chase it back deep inside him. "Do you really doubt that?"

"No," he whispered and his lips were dry and warm against her own.


End file.
